And That's Why We Drink - Listener Stories: Vol. 69

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

Are we holding a grudge against July? Maybe! Can Leona sense Em's sandwich vibes from across the country? Definitely! Has Evil Eva redeemed herself from her month full of scorpios? We'll see! What we can confirm is that we've got some creepy ghost and true crime stories including one with the killer subject line, "Two Lesbians and a Ghost Walk Into a Bar". We also hear about a possessed DVD player, a suspicious Facebook unfriending that wasn't an unfriending at all, and a lost child who found a demonic portal in an Ohio bookstore. Lastly, Yale called and they want their mascot back.Regrettably,And That's Why We Drink!PS. Be sure to check out the amazing candle company Em and Christine mentioned, Lavender Amethyst Co! You can find them at lavenderamethystco.com

happy july july july july july i just realized as the gemini i am i'm wearing a shirt that says gemini season someone is uh holding a grudge towards July. I'm a little bitter about it, but it's fine. A little bitter. Well, I was going to say, how's July going? Well, it's day one. I'm sure it's excellent. Do you have any plans this July? Anything that we're looking forward to this month besides it being cancer season i'm coming to you obviously as i hope you know and that's your and that's the best thing that's going to happen to you this month right well yeah you know what actually well it's technically june as we record this but you're hearing it uh on july 1st uh sweet listeners uh today is the first day that I ever got Leona to laugh. You did?

Wait, really? Yes. She's literally never enjoyed me as a person ever until today. She thought you were funny trying to feed her a sandwich. I was trying to share a sandwich with her. That was actually a very sweet beginning to this friendship here. I loved that moment. She was so happy.

We ate a little Sammy together. I was on FaceTime, and I would shove the sandwich in the camera and say, your turn, you eat it. And she just lost her little mind. She thought it was hysterical. She had no idea what was going on, but I'm glad she knew it was funny. She could she sense the general vibe from across the country. So July's going good for me so far. How's it going for you?

It's great. I'm counting down till I get to come see you because, folks, we're doing a fun little thing with ParCast. Yes, we're doing a little panel situation. Yeah, it's like a live virtual event ParCast presents. I'm very excited about it. It's a true crime event, and Sarah Turney will be there. I'm very excited about it. It's a true crime event and Sarah Turney will be there. I'm really, really excited. So basically it's a one night interactive experience alongside, they said great minds of true crime that, I mean, I hope they're not talking about us. I don't know that we're great minds. I gotta be honest. I don't know why I'm there because I listen to you just as

much as everyone else listens to you. You'll be there for comic relief. I'm going to be the emotional support while everyone's talking about true crime and I'm like well if you need a ghost story I am right here. But I get to be there. I'm very honored to be there with you. It's going to be super fun and if you want tickets you can go to momenthouse.com slash the great minds of true crime and we'll be there so i'm flying out to la for this i'm very excited i'm just very excited to see you i really have a personal vendetta against myself i guess and i'm desperate for this troll hole to be done in time for your your arrival because i really want to surprise you well i'm coming back in august so don't worry don't stress it's not the same i don't want you

to see it half done and then i'm. I'm not going to see it. I'm not going to like stay at your house. So I'm not going to see it if I don't come over. Hurtful. I feel like you should just be like. I mean, I want to see it. But if you're like, don't look at it, then I'm not going to go look at it. But when you do finally look at it, I want you to be like, I got to stay here.

I got to live here. Oh, I'm thinking of the gay bathroom again. I'm like, what? I will also show you the gay bathroom. But no, the gay bathroom and my little troll hole. I want you to look at both of them and be like, this is the place for me. This is where I'm moving to. Yeah, you get it.

You get it. You get it. That's the energy I need you to bring when you see it for the first time. Okay. Okay. Well, then if you want to wait till August, that's fine. So we'll see where you stand mentally and spiritually. Thank you. It won't be well, but you know.

It never is. It might be a little better than normal. Who knows? But anyway, welcome to our July listeners episode. If you are new here, this is, we put one out on the first of every month where you can submit your own personal true crime and paranormal stories uh sweet sweet eva usually comes up with a theme behind our backs and uh then we i don't know if there's a theme today i was not warned of anything uh sometimes that's half the adventure trying to find if there's a theme and sometimes there's not not a theme and we just force the theme into the equation we or sometimes there's a theme and we just find a different theme oh we make our own theme right yeah yeah usually we make our own theme and i will say i think maybe i'm wearing my gemini shirt subconsciously because the last

month uh when it was gemini season the theme was scorpios because eva thought she was doing a little silly silly little game a silly little prank that was that was evil evil eva that evil eva indeed evil yes we'll shop it um yeah she decided to for our birthdays to give us a really horrid gift which was uh just scorpios abound just from every direction uh so maybe this this season will get some redemption with a gemini story if you've manifested well enough. We'll see. All right.

So here is our first one. This is from Alicia. I do not know Alicia's pronouns. Uh oh. That's okay. We're just going to say Alicia. Alicia's subtitle or, uh, no, real title real title, is a very good one. Subject?

Subject. Our subject line is. I don't know what's wrong with me. The subject is two lesbians and a ghost walk into a bar. Sounds fun. I love that one. So Alicia says, hello all, my name is Alicia. Oh, and then pronouns.

Great. Finally found them. She, her, slash scorpio oh eva what is going on i think this might i think if this is the theme it's just more scorpios i have fear i am frightened she's she's doing a number on us okay alicia she her thank you for normalizing pronouns sorry it took me forever to get there. I tend to ramble, so I'm sorry and feel free to chop out anything irrelevant to the story. Well, Eva chose to not do that. So congratulations, your whole story will be here.

I'm going to crack this baby open and tell you about my experience with a ghost. Six years ago, I was a month into dating a girl who lived in Wilmington, North Carolina. I lived two hours away and went to go stay with her for a few days. lived in Wilmington, North Carolina. I lived two hours away and went to go stay with her for a few days. Wilmington has a lot of history, but at the time I was more interested in the girl. Fair enough. Melissa took me to this bar located downtown in the early afternoon called Blue Post Billiards. To get to the bar, you have to walk through this long, eerie alleyway. Since it was in the middle of a Tuesday, we had the whole bar to ourselves. I love when you go to a restaurant and you're the only one there. I feel like I

do at a bar, not necessarily at a restaurant because I'm like, why is nobody eating here? It's a bad sign. I think that's fair, but that's only if it's a restaurant I've never been to and it's empty, which has happened to me. That was a rough one and it had such good reviews. I was so upset. good reviews i was so saying when there's nobody there and you're like is this a bad sign but i have go to's in my neighborhood and when i'm there by myself i'm like i'm gonna get my rush here now top tier service um so anyway they are by themselves in this billiard hall bar it was nice to be flirty and goofy without having to worry about what's going on around us and fun fact blue post is a location used in a lot of movies and tv shows including one tree hill and tammy okay blue post has two large rooms with pool tables a phone a photo booth

jukebox arcade games pinball machines and seating. There is so much to look at. And in between the two rooms is a long and narrow hallway. We had some drinks, played pool, and decided to sit in the hallway on some sofa seats. The hallway is dark with mellow red and yellow lighting and Japanese lanterns hung from the high ceiling. We had high, we had already closed out our tab and Melissa got up to use the bathroom before we moved on with our day. I was sitting in the hallway distracted by my phone and I looked up to realize that I wasn't alone. There was a man sitting maybe six feet away from me. And I thought this was a little strange because why sit so close to me in a congested area if there is literally anywhere else in the bar to sit oh boy i shook the thought because i am a

friendly and open person and maybe he was having a rough day and wanted to be around other folks i asked him how's it going and he replied with something like not great i could really use a beer right about now and i don't have any money i then noticed his raggedy clothes and judging by the way he looked one might assume he was underprivileged or maybe unhoused he wore a hat that i can best describe as a train conductor's hat it was grayish and flat and top uh when he he was either wearing overalls or an outfit with straps, possibly suspenders, but I just remember trying not to let him catch me staring. He looked really depressed and I figured if the bar let him in without buying anything, then he was harmless. I almost excitedly gave him cash to go get himself a beer until I realized that I paid for our own drinks

with the cash I had. Card tabs were a $20 minimum and we didn't spend that much. So I paid with cash and gave the rest of the cash I had to the bartender as a tip, maybe more than I should have because I wanted to impress the girl. I told him I would have given him my money if I had it. And at this point, Melissa is back and sits down next to me. The man says, yeah, yeah, you're just giving me that line. You have money, but you don't want to give it to me. He says this with anger in his voice and with severe eye contact that made me uncomfortable but i didn't want him to think i was lying so i pulled out my wallet and flashed it open to show him i didn't have any cash as i did this melissa asked me what are you doing

and i said this guy doesn't believe that i spent all the cash we have i wanted to buy him a beer melissa just stared at me puzzled and said what guy no i don't like it so oh my god so she didn't even melissa didn't even hear this guy see this guy yeah but like he said oh you're just giving me that line and melissa's like already back so like she didn't hear that that's freaky oh hey hello what's that i got on my arms goose cam um yikes and now i have to fit it figure out what is happening all over again um okay melissa just stared at me puzzled and said, what guy? I ignore what she says because the man starts. Wait, he's still here. Oh, he's still there. For God's sake. That's what I'm saying. Like he's still there and she and the person would be gone. But no, no.

I was wrong. It just keeps happening. I ignore what she says because the man starts yelling, stands up, and comes walking towards us. Everything in me screamed danger. I don't even remember what he was yelling because I was terrified. I grabbed Melissa's arm and ran like a motherfucker out of that bar. I didn't look back, but I could hear him right behind me. His voice carried through the bar and seemed to chase us out.

And I'm running through downtown Wilmington as I saw a freaking, as if I saw a freaking ghost. I'm dragging. Oh, yeah. And I'm dragging Melissa behind me. Melissa was resisting my pull and kept saying, stop. What the hell is going on? And I wouldn't stop. She quit running and thought, OK, fine.

Every man for himself uh i ran across i ran crossing another street without even checking to see if it was safe to cross don't worry i didn't get hit by a car but i did trip and fall in the middle of the street i gotta remind everyone this was this person's like first date or something or like very early on and now this person thinks that you are talking to people who aren't there and also while running she probably saw you trip and fall just eat shit yeah just like it gets more and more like intimately embarrassing oh i hope the two of you are like perfectly in love right now. But if this was your only date, it's at least a really good one. Okay.

Falls on the street. I got back up and started running again. The only reason I stopped was because I had no idea where I was running and I didn't know where we parked. When Melissa caught up, we went back and forth over what just happened. She swears nothing was there and I swear that he was there. She was so sure and i started to wonder if i had hallucinated i wasn't on drugs i didn't have much to drink and i've never hallucinated before but why would she lie about that not happening i go back home the next day and went

to get lunch at a place i regularly went to i sit at the bar so i could talk to my favorite bartender i tell him how i really screwed the pooch with Melissa and she probably thinks I'm Looney Tunes. I go over what happened and Jerry asked me the name of the bar we went to and I told him that it was the Blue Post. He casually said, oh, well, that explains it. I used to work there and that place is haunted. I stare at him in disbelief and he tells me how nothing major happened while he had worked there that was worth talking about, but he said how weird things would happen while he was cleaning up the bar by himself after closing time. If I remember correctly, he mainly talked about how the TVs would turn themselves on after he would turn them off. This conversation was back in 2016, and I was so shocked. I honestly don't remember everything he

told me about what he knew about the Blue Post. found it fascinating but i was just relieved that i wasn't crazy and despite melissa's friends telling her to ghost me see what i did there melissa decided to keep me around and we're now married oh i'm so happy she loves telling people the story and she does and she does believe what i experienced i have nothing i gained from the story and i don't care if people don't believe me uh one other thing has happened to me since but i figure this story has been long enough i'll post the short but sweet part two later and y'all can decide if you want to share it thank you guys for being something i can look forward to uh and listen to every week and shout out my best friend katherine for getting me on board with the and

that's why we drink train much love and happy pride uh lissa that's maybe the theme no pride which maybe maybe it's pride i know like like every day's pride we're gonna start july off with a new pride month i was gonna say of course you would do it after pride month but uh maybe the theme is running and tripping in front of someone you have a crush on. Maybe it's train conductors. Because she said the train conductor guy. And then she said, and that's why we drink train. Oh.

So you have two points so far in the sick game we play every month. Sick game we invent. The sick game that only we play and everyone else has to deal with. And nobody's ever had points before, but now suddenly there are points. So that's fun. Also, I think I said Alyssa at the end, but it's Alicia. So sorry. Alicia.

You said Alicia. Oh, Alicia. Okay, perfect, perfect, perfect. All right, so I have a story here. This is from Brooke. She, they pronouns. And the subject is, I was in elementary school across the street when my dad had the Bayou Strangler on trial. What the fuck? Okay. Okay. Wow. So I feel like Eva read that title and went, this one's a humdinger. Don't even have to read it. Just ring ding ding. Ring ding ding.

Hi, Eva. I'm Christine and all partners and pets. I love the podcast and have been listening humdinger don't even have to read it just ring ding ding ring ding ding hi eva m christine and all partners and pets i love the podcast and have been listening since 2018 even saw you guys back in new orleans despite having a ba in english i can't start a story for shit so here we go i'm a big time true crime fanatic which is in part due to the fact that my dad is a district court judge this has been a cool feature of my growing up as my elementary school was right across the street from the courthouse in my small Louisiana hometown. This meant that throughout my childhood, I was regularly walked to and from school by police officers and judges in robes ready for the day. Oh, my God. Usually I would just sit in dad's office and play computer games until he was done for the day. Sometimes I even sat on the side of the bench and listened in on cases, making PowerPoints of evidence to show my dad later on.

Okay, so I feel like this is immediately the friend you wished you had growing up. Oh, I wish. I so wish. One, eavesdropping. Two, town gossip. Three, PowerPoint presentations afterwards summarizing in case you missed it. True crime. True crime. And also like would have paired very nicely with your I live in a cemetery. Come eavesdrop here. Oh my gosh. We can go straight from the courthouse to the cemetery.

Hey, Brooke, are you looking for a friend? Okay. I was going to say, I feel like I would have been out of a job if you met Brooke earlier. The two of you would have done this a long time ago. Brooke, it's not too late to run away together. Okay. Naturally, this turned into a love of true crime. Fast forward to me doing my own research on cases, reading murder mysteries, and listening to podcasts.

I came across a documentary called Bayou Blue, all about the Bayou Strangler, Ronald Joseph Dominique. He was active from 1997 to 2006 with an MO of luring men back to his trailer to assault and murder them. I was shocked to learn that he was active and ultimately tried in my hometown in front of a grand jury. Come to find out, my dad was the presiding judge and I was feet away in his office when this horrific murderer sat in front of the grand jury. Oh, my gosh. Not the most exciting story, but a fun little true crime anecdote nonetheless. I wanted to give you guys a little bit of Louisiana that's more than just our disturbing paranormal activity. Regrettably, Brooke.

Regrettably. Oh, my God. By the way. Oh. Oh, go ahead. No, do your ps first ps i'm living in colorado now and hope to catch you guys pretty soon up here well you missed us we were there a couple months ago but that's okay but also regrettably um so regrettably is my new favorite way to end messages but i will say that came in perfect time because just yesterday allison

sent me like an office meme which i guess we miss because we don't work in corporate uh situations oh i thought you meant like the show not the show like no no like like something that i work place meme yeah i don't know where she found it on like a powerpoint like a powerpoint that her office like sent out to their client. I don't, I don't totally understand. It's happening. It's like a, she was working on a PowerPoint thing for her office and there was a meme or

a picture, like a graphic in the PowerPoint that like she started tackling to. And I was like, what is like the cool office humor these days? Yeah. Yeah. So she's, she sends me this picture and I don't know the right word for it, you know when there's like like lawful good neutral good chaotic good and it's

like all nine of them it's it's that chart but with um with like the way that you say goodbye at the end of an email so so apparently here are just some of them lawful good is warmly uh chaotic good is cheers chaotic neutral is sent from my iphone my neutral evil is no sign off but my personal favorite is chaotic evil which is chow chow that's good because i thought cheers would be it but chow is even wilder i don't know where regrettably falls on that, but I think that's the new lawful good. I think Regrettably doesn't even fall on that. It just kind of is its own chart. It's the Trump card.

It's the Trump card. Let me see. I thought, I think, I'm trying to find my, I swore I thought I maybe had covered, I think I'm thinking of a different strangler. Strangler? Since I mentioned the office? No. I think I covered, hang on.

Oh, the Taco Bell strangler in the book for Charlotte, North Carolina. I was trying to remember. I was like, it's a Southern city and it had a strangler. Well, Wilmington, North Carolina. Oh, that was the last one. We are really all over the place. This one was Louisiana. But so I wanted to see if I had covered him.

But I don't think I have. Ronald Joseph. But I know his name. So either it was in my notes for the book. I don't think I've covered him on the podcast. Well, when you do cover it, know that our sweet listener was like a little child and uh and just playing pajama sam like 10 feet away yeah just next time just like to give you like a like a in the eyes of a of a really true crime

story hosted by christine schieffer know that one of our listeners was in the story you'd be reporting on was there oh my gosh oh my gosh okay so um thank you for that also i didn't even realize that yeah that means you grew up with like a bunch of murderers just sitting next to you only a few like one wall away yeah oh i wonder if that caused a complex for you brooke would have caused one for me. Regrettably. Regrettably, Brooke. Sorry. Regrettably us.

I'm going to sign everything regrettably us. Well, you know, like in the Broadway show, like Dear Evan Hansen, there's the song Sincerely Me. Like now we've got the new one. Regrettably us. Oh. Oh, regrettably us is fine too. Okay. Here's another one. This is from Sam. He's a's a she her pronouns thank you for normalizing pronouns sam and the title or as i

like to call it the subtitle um is my family's haunted ass house nice by the way do we have an idea of the theme oh eva threw a curveball with that last one i didn't see any trains in that you know i haven't seen any trains in that. You know, I haven't seen any trains and I haven't seen any armchairs this episode yet. You make a good goddamn point. Christine Schaefer. Thank you.

Emma fee. Eva, Evitha. We absolutely, we, lest we forget, did I, or did I not demand armature?

Uh, as the theme this year? Where is it? Eva, I swear to God, you get one month of a grace period next. It better be armature August next month. Armature August is coming in hot. I want arms. I want furniture.

I want armature. And if I don't get that, I'm not going to be a happy little sport about it. That's the truth. I'm going to be throwing a fit an epic fit here's my mind it's gonna be gone next time because i'll have lost it very good okay i'll help you find it okay my family's haunted ass house by sam hello and that's why they drink people fur babies and petrified fruit family i'd like to start off by saying this is my favorite podcast and it makes my morning drive to work terrifying in a good way. In a good way. Okay. So knuckle and buckle. I remember when we

used to do that. Knuck and buck, right? Knuckle and buckle. White knuckle and nobody liked it. We tried to make it a thing and only Sam liked it. I'm still desperately trying to get armature to be a thing and maybe that will also die as knuckle and buckle did. Armature? Wait, wasn't it armature? It was armature last year, right? Or last month? What are you talking about? No, it was armchairs.

Oh, armature. Oh, because they said amateur. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were trying to write amateur and they wrote armchair, I think, or something. It will have to be. I'm sticking with the armature. But yeah, knuckle and buckle falls in the same category. chair i think or something it might it will have to be i'm sticking with the armature but yeah knuckle and buckle falls in the same category it's there's things i desperately want others to be okay

with and uh and knuckle and buckle is i guess just not one of them except for sam sam likes knuckle and buckle knuckle and buckle y'all because this shit is noodles all the way to the top yeah my family moved into this house when i was 17 and it was kind of a big deal with my parents being divorced and us kids moving around a lot in and out of apartments shortly after moving in spooky shit started happening my stepdad is very into horror films and regularly wrote my mom into sitting through them good and bad ones uh one night they were watching The Last Exorcism while us kids were away at my dad's. During peak spook of the movie, the hallway lights started flickering. Supremely freaked out, they tried stopping the movie and it would not stop. Uh-oh.

They tried using the remote, then the buttons on the DVD player, then ejecting the movie and nothing. The movie continued. Ejecting the movie. Good times. Nice. Good times. VHS? Okays okay uh and then nothing the movie continued to play and the lights continued to flicker then they had to unplug the tv uh which continued to play oh no oh no no i read the the first line again no now there's no power it's not okay the electricity's gone okay they they had to

unplug the tv to which the lights also finally stopped the dvd player had to be taken apart to get the movie out oh oh my god well i think a dvd player would have to be taken oh you can eject a dvd too i was like the dvd player couldn't get the video out. Anyway, I'm showing my age. What on earth are you talking about right now? When they said ejecting the movie, I thought they meant a videotape, not a DVD. Yeah, me too, but I think they meant a DVD. No, they did. My own head went different places.

Oh, I see. The DVD player had to be taken apart to get the movie out. And not long after, my mom was dead asleep. And she's a heavy sleeper. Nothing can wake that woman. And when she shot awake, she shot awake to the sound of someone with heavy feet sprinting down the hall towards their bedroom. No. When all of the lights in their bedroom turned on all by themselves. No.

So, God. Okay. So so you have that freaky thing with the dvd then you're going to bed and you wake up in the middle of the night to hearing someone bull rushing into your room while the lights in your room turn on by themselves the fact that the lights turn on is very frightening to me especially when they were flickering earlier yeah and like implying that oh your lights aren't working all the way and now they're really working all the way by themselves on a separate night they were dead asleep when boom what sounded like a giant bookshelf toppling over in the living room woke them up my stepdad baseball bat and dog ringo in tow ran out to see what made this crazy ass sound and nothing was out of place nothing out of the

ordinary no explanation my stepdad thoroughly spooked asked whoever was residing in this house to please go away you're freaking out my wife um i think they're freaking you out stepdad no i think you're freaking around with all these horror movies stop watching horror movies i would say stop stop all all the scariness activities seemed to stop and the ghosts were like lol okay and fucked off uh until my parents went on vacation and my brother lucas and his girlfriend bella stayed to watch the house and our pup for the week which i like that by the way that the ghosts were like oh we're freaking out your wife okay we'll leave and then the wife went on vacation and they were like, bet.

They were like, you didn't say anything about the dog and the boyfriend and the... They were in the basement watching TV when they hear the squeaky door to the garage open and slam. Ringo started barking and going crazy and Lucas sprinted upstairs to see who came in. No one. Him and Ringo searched every room to find nothing. They relaxed a little and went back downstairs. When it happened again, the loud squeaky door opened and slammed. Same as the last time,

they found no one. Completely terrified, they went to bed and locked the bedroom door. And that night, while trying to sleep, they heard footsteps in the hall. What made it too fucking real is Ringo sprung up, sprung his head up and began

growling at the door yeah no the footsteps sprinted right up to the bedroom and the handle to the door began to jiggle no to the bedroom no no no lucas did the only thing he knew to do and he threw the covers over his head and tried to sleep. Lucas, Bella, and Ringo had heard this. That was the latest and hopefully the last experience in the house. And luckily, I have not had an experience in the house except for that creepy feeling that someone is watching me. Maybe because I moved out not long after they bought it to go to college, but it is a well-known fact in our family that this house is haunted and nothing has ever happened while all of us are there while all of us are there together weird like like whatever it is is targeting couples oh oh i didn't think of that and and sam are you single single i was gonna say i hope the ghosts think you're single um anyway thank you so much for reading sorry it was so long i hope to see y'all in my hometown of

st louis missouri sometime in the future keep up the scaries love y'all sam team wine oh gosh i don't blame you for drinking i mean i'm glad you haven't experienced anything it's kind of fun to be able to share a story where like you weren't traumatized in the process everyone else was right right right right yeah um and that's why i i genuinely think that's why i don't watch horror movies because in my head i tell myself like oh well now any ghosts know i'm scared and they can take advantage of that i like i psych myself out so bad with those scary movies i feel i feel like that makes sense a little bit of like oh you're giving it energy or you're conjuring it in some way i definitely i mean it would make sense it also just makes sense psychologically i mean that's

why you have like bad dreams after because you're thinking about it right but like you're definitely in a in a spookier in a spookier zone because i hung out with some friends um recently we were just sitting there and while we were all talking and catching up there was they were playing youtube in the background and it was like a compilation of like unexplainable ghostly things that have happened on security cameras oh and even though we were having like a fun time just like every time i would glance the tv i'd get a little creeped out i was like oh the i'm in a now i'm in the spooky zone you know it's like in the peripheral i don't like it um that's why i don't watch scary movies and yet i watch crime shows and

yeah see i would i would much rather watch a scary movie than a crime show what's wrong with me okay um all right so the next one i have is from kristin she her and the subject is dead not unfriended oh oh boy okay hello all i wrote in a while ago about some personal ghost stories but i also have an intriguing true crimey story i would like to share however first i would like to point out that i just listened to episode 205 where Em discusses how the Simpsons predicted the future. But in that episode, Em predicts the future by talking about a bread shortage. Well, here we are potentially facing a huge wheat shortage because of the war in Ukraine. Thanks, Em. Smiley face. You are welcome. Good job.

To be fair, didn't know what I was doing. When do we, though, you know? Never, never. Anyway, my true crime story is about my childhood friend, Ashley. I met Ashley in fifth grade when she moved from California to Colorado. We quickly became best friends, and her mom would watch me after school until my mom got off work and could pick me up. Our friendship was somewhat on-again, off-again, and we lost touch in middle school before coming friends again in high school. Ashley was always very popular and full of life.

Oh, I don't like where this is going. She radiated confidence. And as I like to say, Ashley loved herself some Ashley. All right. I love that. Yeah. I love that she loves that for herself. Good for her. After high school, we lost touch for the most part. We ran into each other occasionally,

and when we did, we would always show off pictures of, she would always show off pictures of her kids. We were friends on Facebook, and our page was filled with posts of her family. She was a huge advocate for hydrocephalus because her son was diagnosed with the condition. At our 10-year high school reunion, Ashley introduced me to her husband, Tom. He was a cop. My then-boyfriend and I agreed that he gave us the creeps. Oh, no. Okay.

Something seemed off, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Ashley and I exchanged contact information, and a few months later, she invited me to a New Year's Eve party at her house. I debated going, but ultimately decided it was too far away and declined the invitation shortly after new year's i noticed that ashley was no longer in my friends list on facebook i assumed she was upset with me for not going to her party and unfriended me that was honestly the sort of relationship we had all along so i wasn't too phased by it two years later i was sitting on my couch and scrolling through my phone when a text from my mom came through ashley was murdered oh my god oh i was not only taken aback by the content of the text but also by the complete lack of emotion conveyed by my mom who also knew ashley selfishly my first thought was god damn it ashley why did you unfriend me i immediately went to the

computer and looked her up and there it was she died on new year's the day of the party i didn't go to holy god shit wow can you imagine the survivor's guilt no she didn't unfriend me she was dead her death was initially ruled a, but had been reopened two years later because enough evidence was found to try her husband for murder. The way the case was handled from the beginning was pitiful. The same police department her husband worked for was the one handling the case, of course. He had scratches all over his chest that he claimed he got from shaving. The bedroom where the shooting occurred. Like on his chest.

No, I know. I'm saying what? As in like, come again? What are you talking about? Come again. The bedroom where the shooting occurred was in disarray as though there was a fight. And a neighbor initially testified that he heard Tom screaming, I shot my wife. I just shot my wife.

Oh my God. Jesus. Regardless of all this, Tom was found not guilty and her death to this day remains listed as a suicide wow i know well you know i know how personally i was not there that night and cannot definitively say what happened but as someone who knew her suicide just doesn't seem fathomable because i as i said before ashley loved herself some ashley on that tragic note i want to say thank you so much for your podcast i listen while painting while working out and i also let it distract me when i'm supposed

to be working love to all and take care kristin holy crap wow that is heartbreaking. So basically. And also. Go ahead. I was just going to say. So basically when she was like, why the hell did my mom not show any emotion? But it's probably because she knew she had died two years ago, but was saying like, oh, she was murdered. She didn't die by suicide. I don't know. Wow. That's a heavy one.

That's rough. wow that's uh it's a heavy one and also it feels i feel like i can speak for probably anyone that listens to us that it feels like uh there was a cover-up involved yeah or just not even covering anything up just letting him yeah go yep scary uh and who at no, Ashley was the other person. Who wrote this? No, Ashley was the friend who died. Yeah, who wrote the letter to us? Kristen. Okay. Thank you, Kristen, for your story.

Also, sorry for your friend. This is from Michael, who uses he, him pronouns. Thank you for normalizing pronouns, Michael. Let me see i always like it when we get someone with it with he him pronouns i feel like that doesn't happen a lot so it's a it pops to the eye so m likes you better than everyone else i don't need to give uh he hims any more privilege that's what you're doing i don't know i'm just saying we are demographic it's it's hard it's not often we come come across a he it's true it's true

uh this subject is a a short ghost story and an abridged murder a bridge murder abridged no i know it's a abridged murder imagine if the abridged murder is on a bridge that's what i i realized that i said abridged murder out loud it sounded like i was saying a bridge murder anyway yeah you know what if the if there is a bridge in this you're gonna be really excited so my new point system i get one point for the bridge. Yeah honestly I've given up on the theme of whatever this is. The theme is confusion and I have it so. Okay hello Em and Christine my name is Michael and I am a new listener as of summer 22. Whoa so you're like a hot few days in. And technically summer started two days ago as we record this. I mean, I assume he's saying like summertime, but still.

If Michael is listening chronologically, Michael's going to have to listen and then find out like in five years that we've read his letter after like two days of sending it in. After two days. And also he probably doesn't even know your pronouns yet. Oh, what a silly time this is for you michael well and maybe not because if he's like sending his pronoun well i guess we do ask for them in the thing anyway yeah whatever i don't know michael let us know what year it is when you hear us talking to you right now okay very fun um all right so i am a new listener as of summer 22, but I have been devouring your episodes. Wow.

That's so nice. I've listened to two listener episodes, the first and the most recent. Oh, so maybe he will catch it. A little book ending. And when I remembered, I have two stories. When I remembered, I have two stories to share with you. So here we go. The first story is a quick go story.

When I was 12, my family and i lived in asheville north carolina our house was small but comfortable for our four-person households and in addition there were a couple other small cottages close by that became a mini community for us setting the set here's the ghost stuff both of my moms and i are sensitive in different ways well one night my moms woke up to the landline beside their bed ringing like crazy and the lights on the cordless set going haywire and making noises neither of them had ever heard before. Cut to some time later, one of them woke up and at the foot of the bed staring at them was a ghostly woman wearing a dress. No. If memory serves, they tried talking to her but got no reply what

do you even say what did your mom say like yeah like what are you doing here go away i don't know i'd be like please leave us please leave us you're in the wrong house it's you do not go to that cottage over there yeah they're expecting you yeah they were uh they were not nice to me last week so please just go take a step over yeah yeah they they still have my casserole dish and i would really like it back thank you lastly in the spring and summertime i helped the older woman next door with her gardening i don't know what called me to do so but in the back of her garden between our two cottages was an overgrowth of some creeping ivy so i went to clear it away and underneath was a tombstone laid on its back i set it upright and told the neighbor

that uh what i had found she told me that back in the day they had used to bury their loved ones out behind their houses anyways after finding that we didn't have another ghostly encounter in that house and that's the that's the first story oh so maybe it's like oh you fixed the the grave and the woman was finally at peace do you know what i mean yeah i see i see you fixed her tombstone uh-huh you you helped her move on or. And now she stops calling the landline all the time in the middle of the night. She stops staying in your home, but also you don't get your cash roll dishes back. That's true. Here's the second story from Michael.

I'm going to keep this brief-ish, but if you're interested in more, all court documents and findings are available. Documents and findings are available. After living in North Carolina, we moved back to Yale, Michigan, a small town with not a lot going on, except that they borrowed both the school colors and mascot from the actual Yale. I love that. Why not? I love it. It's just like it's already built in. It's already got a reputation.

Might as well just stick with it. One day, my senior year of high school, my brother and I received a phone call from the school on an automated system from yale no from school oh my god i'm sorry i thought he i thought he literally meant from yale being like stop doing that anyway i got a call from yale and they said they want their mascot back oh my god i'm so stupid okay sorry i was really in the wrong head space there someone used that sometime what's the yale what's the yale mascot it's a bulldog okay next time someone approaches a bulldog in yale michigan be like yale called they want their mascot back um good one nailed it nailed it um okay so one day at my senior year of high school my brother and i received a phone call from our school in yale michigan on an automated system stating that school was canceled for the day and

we found this extremely weird as it was fall and it was uh either late september or early october and we knew there was no snow outside not Not shortly afterward, one of my best friends texts me saying, Tia Skinner's dad is dead. He was stabbed to death and her mom is in critical care. Oh my God. Oh no. Tia was also one of my best friends from sophomore year through this point in high school.

Everyone was shocked. Her family was really nice. Her mom was a teacher and everyone knew them as investigations went underway and as things became clearer and clearer it turns out that tia had actually planned the murder what the fuck so now one of your best friends planned a murder yeah exactly that's even worse oh my god she coordinated with her boyfriend and one of her friends promising them all kinds of things and threatening the friend's child oh jesus she drew them a map of the house pointing to a window for them to climb in and she would unlock for them or she and her

brother would be at the time she and her brother would be in at the time so wait the both of the kids plotted this or maybe the brother was just in the i don't know part of the attack like maybe he was attacked or was it just the parents i don't know okay i don't know uh she drew a map of the house pointing at the window where her and her brother would be and where her parents room was so that they could kill them because fuck because tia was my friend local police interviewed and questioned me and i went to see the court proceedings with another mutual friend oh my gosh tia had no remorse and admitted to planning the murder and once she was sentenced she called me a few times from prison

and we chatted until one time she called saying she would send me a letter that was for her then boyfriend the one who carried out the murder oh fuck no and she wanted me to forward it to him in prison as they couldn't communicate to each other directly no after that i never spoke to her again and in college boundaries uh-huh boundaries gorgeous gorgeous girls gorgeous gorgeous michael we're setting boundaries okay setting boundaries um in college about three years later i got a phone call from a reporter who was doing a TV series on small town murders. I can't remember which show now, but I didn't really feel comfortable with it, so I never followed through. But not long after, Tia was up for parole for good behavior.

I stopped following things after that and haven't thought about it until writing this letter. Again, good for your boundaries, Michael. Yeah, seriously. You are doing a good job a good job learn a thing or two from you thanks for taking the time to read my stories keep up the great content i'm just going to be sad when i'm fully caught up all the best oh don't worry there's so much of it you're probably gonna get sick of us before you get caught up michael i'm so glad that you like the show and also i'm so glad that you have healthy boundaries and because i'm so happy for you and jealous a little bit also i'm so so sorry that your best friend's a literal murderer that's terrifying with zero remorse i'm so sorry you had

to go through that i can't imagine where i i i would i really am just fascinated by what the psychology of that looks like. I feel like there's some version of a guilt complex of looking back and wondering if you could have stopped it. Well, hopefully not because Michael has really good boundaries, so he's probably not. That's something we would do. Michael, it sounds like you're not one to spiral like i am but i surely i i really hope your mental health is doing okay because i would have been questioning everything for a long time and i hope that didn't happen to you i hope the mom survived i hope the mom survived too it's very scary um but thank you michael for your story i really appreciate it thank you for sharing that that was like two a ghost and a crime in one yeah i think michael gets it like he showed up to the podcast and was like

step aside michael showed up came in hot came in real hot of like i just started your show um now i will be telling you all of my stories wait till he finds out about the armchair theme he probably has one of those too michael i know you've got yourself a little armature in that sleeve of yours you're i'm excited for that armature story of yours michael um armature is like a word though that's why i feel like i know it's a word what is it what does it mean it's not like a construction thing oh geez this is so boring it's electrical electrical engineering. Oh, Michael, are you an electrical engineer? I don't want that theme. I want armchair. When I say armature, I mean a chair made of arms.

What? No, I don't want that. Sorry. I meant an arm made of chairs. I don't know. You do whatever you want with that information. Stop it. No, I want armchairs. Don't listen to Em. Em's like throwing bombs in my little... Anything's possible, except electrical engineering. Please don't give me that. I don't want that. Stop it. Okay, so this last email is from Bree.

That's one of my favorite names ever. Bree, she, her. And the subject is a haunted bookstore in Tip City, Ohio. I know Tip City. Do you have any good stories from Tip City? No, my brother does, though. He went there a few times with his friends and they did. They just explored. I know there was like a. Someone would. I'm scared to say because I don't know if it was like a real thing, but people would be like Tip City, bitch.

Tip Tip City. Oh, like Rack City. Like Rack City, but they called Tip City. But I don't know if that was just my brother and his friends or if that was like a YouTube video or something. I don't know. If it wasn't something, you've officially started it. Bree, I'm sorry. Every time someone says they're from Tip City, I just go, Tip City, like in my head. Anyway, so here we go. It says,

Hi, Eva, I'm Christine and the rest of of the and that's why we drink crew if you guys ever make your way north of cincinnati you should stop in tip city we have a small historic downtown area with lots of cute and spooky stops we have an old opera house that just opened up for tour okay i want to go here now m i've never been we should drive you want to go to tip tip city bitch i'm gonna play that song not even Like, I'm going to play the YouTube video or whatever the whole time we're driving there. That sounds fun. It sounds cool. We have an old opera house that just opened up for tours and an old bookstore run by a local paranormal group.

I've heard stories about browse-a-while books when I was younger, but never actually experienced anything myself. when I was younger, but never actually experienced anything myself. I've been on a ghost tour with a local paranormal group who walked us around town, told us some of the history and showed us some of the evidence they had caught. There is said to be a portal in the basement of the bookstore, and they also buy and collect haunted books,

which I'm sure only adds to what's going on there. They were also featured on ghost hunters. That's pretty cool. Also somebody at the book signing and gave us candles from their candle shop in tip city i'll find it later i remember those candles they smell so goddamn good yeah um i was like huffing it on the way home what yeah there was uh there was one that was like named zach bagans or something yeah yeah i just found it in blaze's trunk because um we left all the shit in his trunk and he was like can you please get all that stuff out uh please send me if you don't want your exact no way you had your chance

to take it home and you left it in the car that's not my problem I had to get on a plane I had to go on a plane I also had to carry it all into the house yesterday and it was delicate uh items I had to be very careful because there's also that live, laugh, lurk, um, canvas. There was so much good stuff. I had to be very, very cautious. Eventually you and I are going to have to have our own, um, uh, I don't know what it, what we would call it, but I've got so much stuff at the, and that's why I drink apartment for you. And I feel like there's things that you have at your house for me and we need to do like a swap a swap oh my god a swap me how fun would that be though that would be really fun let's do a swap meet I love that idea except but then we're gonna

just sit there and be like I don't know I was well I was just at the and that's why I drink apartment I was looking around I was like there's all this stuff that like I really should just send Christine because like it's definitely meant for you yeah Yeah. I found my Zofran, like my, um, I found your medication, my anti-nausea medication. I was just like, man, like we really should do our own ATW swap meet because there's like, I know there's fan art that I've left at, uh, at your place and there's fan art here for you that has just never gotten to you. So we definitely need to do a little, a little mix-a-rooney. Yeah, I agree i agree um because there

are some that like are very obviously one or the other that aren't really like easily i don't know like i would definitely appreciate it more than you would appreciate it right exactly exactly give it to me you know what i'm saying okay well then don't leave it in my car i guess um okay i i feel bad i can't think of the candle name. I actually meant to bring it upstairs, but I'm going to, after the one from Eva is done, I'm going to light the Tip City candle. Hello, fresh future Christine here. I just wanted to pop in and say that I finally found the name of the candle company. I'm so mad I couldn't remember it. They are called Lavender Amethyst Co. And you can find them at lavenderamethystco.com.

Anyway, sorry, we're back to this. So sorry, Bree, for the tangent. Okay, so this bookstore has a portal in the basement. They collect haunted books and they were featured on Ghost Hunters. Several years ago, my aunt had gone there looking for a book for her son for school. What book could that be? Sorry, side note. That that sounds it's binocular or something yeah that's a good one several years ago my aunt had gone there looking for a book for her son for school and she had brought her youngest son with her she had stopped at the counter to ask the worker for help finding a specific book when she turned around to go to the aisle she was pointing towards she noticed her son wasn't beside her anymore mind you he was maybe was maybe six at the time, old enough to know not to wander off.

She freaked out and the lady at the counter helped her look for him. It's a pretty small store with maybe two small rooms off the main floor and stairs in the back that lead to the basement. Oh my God. After maybe 30 minutes of searching for him. Jesus. Oh, I would assume. This would scare the crap out of me. I would assume your kid isn't even at the store anymore.

Like, I'd be like, my child has gone on the highway. Has been abducted or something. Yeah. It's very scary. After maybe 30 minutes searching for him, they found him downstairs in the basement staring at the open doorway to an empty closet where the portal was said to be. I gotta be honest. No. It's a firm no. Needless to say, she hasn't stepped back in that building since. I wouldn't either. Okay. Me either. Absolutely not.

From now on, if Leona just stares at something for a little too long, get rid of it. Just get rid of it. Get rid of it. The ceiling. The ceiling. The ceiling is gone. No more. You're staring at Em? Bye. Bye, Em. Get out of here. That's easy. ceiling? The ceiling is gone. No more. You're staring at Em? Bye. Bye, Em. Get out of here. That's easy. I just hang up the FaceTime. Oh, okay. That's easy.

I hang up the FaceTime. Well, okay. And I just keep eating my sandwich. Unfortunately, the building caught fire a few years ago due to old, faulty electrical wiring, and they have had to do quite a bit of remodeling since then. I believe the store mostly had water damage, so They didn't lose any of their haunted books. If you need another reason to visit, another spooky building is being renovated

for a pizzeria slash arcade. Oh, we gotta go. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I enjoy my Sundays listening to you both. Also hope you like the... Oh my God. Also hope you like the candles we gave you at the book signing.

I'm so stupid. Wait, this is literally... Yeah. Bree's literally the one... know why would it familiar why on earth would we think two people from tip city came to the same book signing well no she didn't say she was at the book signing but the i know but like oh i well no but the candles were from tip city and they were at the book signing they were at the book signing but i didn't know that like brie never said until the end like that she came to our book signing yeah yeah oh man wow look at you brie well i hope you liked all of the talk about your candles earlier

well i don't know i wonder if they're her candle or if like she bought them there at the i wonder oh i don't remember like i feel like they made them i think they made them too yeah okay i'll i'll make sure and get because why else would there be a zach bagans candle okay brie you make a mean candle i gotta be honest um if you live in tip city i don't know look at every candle shop until you find someone there named brie who has a zach bagans candle and then you've found the right place and then buy all of the candles at that store please because they smelled very good I'm so annoyed I can't find it online I'm gonna have to uh have to she's too humble to not tell us the name of it you know yeah I would really appreciate it if you gave us that gave yourself

a little shout out there Brie because we'd like to give you a shout out too um wow man hi brie they i've guessed you didn't get enough of us at that book signing then you were like it's time to be heard as well uh via email oh well very fun now i've got two reasons to go to tip city brie candles got it and also for this pizzeria arcade situation store yeah yeah that'll do it i would like to take leona to that bookstore so she can maybe stare at the portal and let us know no thank you how involved she wants to be on the other side you know i guess i'll be at the um i'll be at the uh the pizzeria slash arcade you guys can go look at whatever yeah we'll have a little date that'd be fun i just bring her to the bookstore and we just see i'll just follow her eyeline wherever she goes i'll just walk her that direction yeah yeah it's dangerous oh by the way

speaking of spooky things um one of the places i think i told you this already one of the places that allison took me for my birthday was monster palooza did i tell you about this oh wait maybe it was like a monster convention that was literally here on my birthday. It was very cool. A monster convention. Yeah. Allison was trying to find things to do on my actual birthday. And then she found a food festival and Monsterpalooza that were walking distance from each other. Done and done.

I think she took one look at that and went, well, I can close the laptop now. That was easy. But at Monsterpalooza, I bought obviously the chachka extraordinaire uh i bought quite quite a lot of chachka what'd you find i got a little 3d printed squawk you got a squawk he's a little squawky look at him i don't know what his name? He's crying because he's so ugly. Just like me. He looks distraught. Like he's like. I know.

He looks. The folds on his skin alone are troubling. They're all the little warts and the little puddles that he disintegrates into and stuff. And his little wrinkles on his back. Oh my God. He's a little cutie pie. And I love him. I love him too. I thought about giving him to you as a present.

But then I. Oh shit. Well. Oh clonk. I thought about giving him to you as a present. And I was like. I love him too i thought about giving him to you as a present but then i oh shit well oh clonk i thought about giving him to you as a present and i was like i love him too much yeah i can tell you're attached as you hurl him into the floor but if i find a second one we're about to have a set of twinsies and you have one i have one and then they're like parent trap locket like little heart but we both have a squonk i love that anyway uh that was how i wanted to end it i saw the squonk on the table and i was like i know exactly the way i'm gonna exit this episode i'm gonna throw

it on the floor that was in front of everybody that was improv from the squonk oh that was not me okay got it that wasn't planned he heard about tip sitting he was like i gotta go he's like i'm heading over there i'm going to the portal roll out we gotta go i can't i promise i don't want um brie to feel all distraught i'm gonna bring up the candle in the next episode okay like the real the next real episode fun okay okay i was just thinking i why i paused because in my own head i was like i gotta figure out how to get you to ship me one but i i was trying to think when the next time i'm seeing you is and just keep it there and i'll bring it back with me i just forgot it because airplanes but anyway i don't know because also i should take a picture and send it to you the trunk of the car is filled with all the post-it notes that you for some reason crumpled up and saved of all um 160

names of all the books and blaze yeah i was keeping them all in a cup yeah yeah blaze made me go in and um take every single little one out of there so thank you for that so i'm keeping the candle as a prize i like to think that when i'm not around you just do nothing but fucking hate me until the next time you have to see me after you but then you clean up after me most often so i feel like i can't really be mad you know i do clean up when i was at the and that's why i drink apartment because obviously my internet was out um uh allison was working in the main room so i had to like keep myself occupied in the bedroom area and so i just like scrubbed and scrubbed the whole bathroom so when you get there it's gonna look very squeaky clean all for you nice i can't wait you're welcome oh anyway i can't wait to see you and when this comes out you will be here in like the next two weeks yes t minus 12

days which also since there's only two weeks left we'll give you we'll bookend it with the same announcement we did earlier uh hopefully you can attend our podcast uh panel and uh do you remember the name of it um the website uh do you remember the website no but i know that we've here it is i got it okay if you want tickets go to momenthouse.com slash the great minds of true crime plus m schultz and m's there too don't, I am just lucky to be there, honestly, folks. All right. Well, see y'all then. And if you only are a fan of our listeners episodes, then I guess I'll see you for Armature

August, folks. Yeah, I can't wait for that. See you then. And that's why we drink.